Today's conditions brought to you by the Bush Junta -
marionettes of their hyperdimensional puppet masters - Produced and
Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry
Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on
Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor,
don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen."
If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the
kitchen!

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The Signs of the Times
staff wants to thank all of our readers who have sent us articles,
links and contributions to this page. It takes a network to sort
through and begin to see objective reality, and you have all been a
big help. In case you missed it, our article asking readers to
report on what they see can be found
here.

Now
here's a story to shame us all. It's about America's shameful
prison camps in Iraq. It's about the beating of prisoners during
interrogation.

"Sources" may be a dubious
word in journalism right now, but the sources for the beatings in
Iraq are impeccable and any US military intelligence officers who
want to call me a liar can explain how three of their prisoners in
the Bagram camp in Afghanistan were murdered during interrogation.
[...]

Here’s the big question that gnaws at my conscience with
every report of targeted killings, of dead-or-alive rewards for
Saddam, of everyday Iraqi citizens killed in checkpoint incidents,
crossfire gun battles, and roundups of "Baathist
bitter-enders":

If there is no proof of mass weapons threatening anybody, no
evidence of any links to terrorists who actually did attack the
U.S., then by what legal right or on what juridical basis are we
killing or issuing death warrants for any Iraqi leaders or
fighters?

Absent any legal
justification for our attack, are those we are now fighting not in
fact legitimately defending their country against our illegal
aggression?

I
don’t in any way defend Saddam or the
Baathists—it’s abundantly clear that they are not nice
people, were not good for Iraq. But what’s the precedent,
what’s the moral principle underlying our actions and being
reinforced by them? How are we in fact different from Saddam,
using naked power to kill or intimidate those who won’t go
along with our program? [...]

BERLIN, July 23 (Reuters) - Almost one in three Germans below
the age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the
September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according
to a poll published on Wednesday.

And
about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, a
survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit
said.

It also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had
not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some
3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. [...]

OVER
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN (AP) — Finding the Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction that President Bush cited as his main justification for
going to war is now a secondary issue, says Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

In
an interview Monday night aboard an Air Force jet en route to
Washington following a five-day tour of Iraq, Wolfowitz said the
task of settling the weapons question is in the hands of U.S.
intelligence agencies.

"I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction,"
Wolfowitz told a group of reporters traveling with him. "I'm
concerned about getting Iraq on its feet. I didn't come (to Iraq)
on a search for weapons of mass destruction."

He
also asserted that Iraqis themselves have little concern about the
weapons issue.

"If you could get in a relaxed conversation with Iraqis on
that subject they'd say why on earth are you Americans fussing so
much about this historical issue when we have real problems here,
when Baathists are killing us and Baathists are threatening us and
we don't have electricity and we don't have jobs. Those are the
real issues." [...]

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Back from a four-day whirlwind tour of
Iraq, the Pentagon's number two civilian, Paul Wolfowitz, has
admitted that many of the Bush administration's pre-war assumptions
were wrong. [...]

Among the things Wolfowitz says the U.S. guessed incorrectly
was the assumption that some Iraqi Army units would switch sides;
that the Iraqi Police would help maintain security; and that regime
remnants would not resort to guerrilla tactics. [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 400,000 letters have been sent to
members of the U.S. Congress backing a call for an independent
investigation into intelligence used by the Bush administration to
justify the Iraq war, organizers of an online campaign said on
Tuesday. [...]

Bush
and Blair must ante up on Iraq - no more changing the subject, no
more excuses

By
LORRIE GOLDSTEIN -- Toronto Sun
July 22, 2003

It
would be a very good idea if the Tony Blair and George Bush
administrations concentrated on finding Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction (WMD) right now.

That
is, as opposed to conducting apparent witch hunts against a
low-level British civil servant who has now committed suicide, or
reportedly smearing a gay, Canadian-born ABC news reporter who
interviewed angry American soldiers in Iraq. [...]

If
Bush and Blair and their supporters want to shut up the growing
chorus of people now questioning their invasion of Iraq, there's
only way to do it - find Iraq's WMD. [...]

For many of us who supported this war, it was a convincing
argument because in a post-9/11 world we accepted the logic that
nations could no longer afford to wait for a smoking gun - meaning
a gun that has already gone off - before acting.

But
if it turns out there was no gun, the U.S. and Great Britain have a
big problem - the same problem a cop has when he shoots someone
because he says they were about to shoot him, and then it turns out
there's no gun. [...]

Comment:There was no logic behind the Bush Reich's arguments.
They wanted Saddam to prove Iraq didn't have WMDs. It is impossible
to prove you don't have something. There is always the possibility
that you have it, but you hid it, or you gave it to your neighbor
for safe keeping. The author of this article seems rather upset
that she was lied to, but she must face the fact that knowingly or
not, she supported Bush's lies and is at least partly responsible
for the consequences. The real issue is not what will happen to
Bush and Gang for lying - even if they are all impeached, their
replacements will probably not be a great improvement. They are all
puppets. The issue is how the author and all those who may be
starting to glimpse the horror of the situation will use the
shocks that they are experiencing right now. Will they
also point the finger and go back to sleep, or will they look in
the mirror?

The United States will release photographs of the dead sons of
Saddam Hussein, to prove they were killed by American troops, says
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. He told reporters in
Washington the pictures would be released soon, but he didn't
specify when. [...]

(CBS) In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a
long-standing policy banning political assassination. It was the
misfortune of Saddam Hussein's sons that the Bush administration
has not bothered to enforce the prohibition. [...]

Earlier this week, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul
Bremer, stated in unusually candid terms the administration's
disregard for the assassination ban.

Appearing on NBC, Bremer said U.S. officials presumed that
Saddam was still alive and that American forces were trying to kill
him.

"The sooner we can either kill him or capture him, the
better," Bremer said. Often in the past, officials resorted to
winks and nods or other circumlocutions when asked about U.S.
actions that gave the appearance of homicidal intent.
[...]

Baghdad — U.S. troops captured a senior Republican Guard
official Wednesday, one day after killing Saddam Hussein's elder
sons Uday and Qusay, but the guerrilla campaign against American
forces persisted with two more soldiers killed. [...]

The
head of the Special Republican Guard, Barzan Abd al-Ghafur Sulayman
Majid al-Tikriti, was seized at an undisclosed location in Iraq,
Gen. Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad. He was 11th on the U.S.
list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis. [...]

The
Pentagon, recognising the pressures on troops who are now serving
in Iraq as peacekeepers after fighting a war, announced Wednesday a
major program of troop rotations. [...]

The
US Army has a total of 368,900 troops deployed overseas, in 120
countries including the Balkans and Afghanistan, out of a total
485,000 active service personel, plus 206,000 reservists and
352,000 National Guard troops. [...]

A leading Israeli
human rights group has accused Israeli soldiers of
"malicious and cruel" treatment of Palestinians and the military
leadership of indifference to widespread abuses.

The
Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) issued its annual
report yesterday with denunciations of violence by Palestinian
groups and the army during the intifada, but the spotlight fell on
the Israeli military.

"Most of the abuses occur
not as a result of operational necessity on the part of the army,
but from vindictiveness on the part of soldiers, who receive
implicit approval to denigrate the dignity, life and liberty of
innocent Palestinians," it says.
The report notes that in the year to June, the military's "targeted
assassination" policy killed 80 alleged militants but 90 innocents
also died in the process.

The
ACRI is also strongly critical of the hundreds of Israeli army
roadblocks. It states that they are intended as a collective
punishment, rather than to prevent bombings as the army
claims.

The
report also lists numerous individual abuses by troops, including a
case in which a soldier carved a Star of David on a Palestinian's
arm. It concludes that the military's failure to prosecute
encourages further abuses.

The
army issued a written statement rejecting the charge. "The opposite
is true," it said.

With
the launch of its own domestically produced warships comparable to
American Aegis-equipped vessels, China is angling for control of
the regional high seas and challenging U.S. power in the area,
analysts and reports indicate. Chinese warship
According to a May report in the Hong Kong Tai Yang Bao newspaper,
the new warship – a destroyer – was launched earlier
this summer and represents China's first next-generation vessel
built at home. As WorldNetDaily reported , the People's Liberation
Army Navy, or PLAN, has been purchasing Russian-built
Sovremenny-class destroyers to upgrade its "brown water," mostly
coastal-defense navy to a long-range blue-water fleet.
[...]

LONDON: Murder of Dr. David
Kelly, one of the members of UN’s Weapons Inspection team in
Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction allegedly manufactured
and piled up by the Saddam government, has left no doubt that to
which extent the group of criminal-minded individuals responsible
for a new conflict in the Middle East could go to serve its vested
interests.
Although all the government agencies in UK and the media in United
States is trying to portray this seemingly cold blooded murder as a
"suspicious suicide", the circumstances led to Dr. Kelly’s
disappearance and death clearly indicate that who should be held
responsible for silencing a voice for sanity and truth.

UN
inspectors were under grave threat before the war. Before the war
on Iraq, the US administration, acting like mafia gangsters, used
all fair and foul tactics to justify a war on Iraq to appease some
specific lobbies. Top US officials were hurling threats to the UN
inspectors and were pressurizing them to declare that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction.[...]

Political accountability is
insufficient to protect our liberties as the Bush administration
wages secret war on terrorism

Susan N. Herman
The American Lawyer

[V]oters need to know how
the president is using his newly enlarged powers before we can
evaluate whether or not he is abusing them. And there is so much
that we do not know. The government has been reluctant to release
information about its detention practices, for example, even in
circumstances where federal judges have concluded that the
government's claimed need for secrecy was exaggerated.

Shortly after Sept. 11,
2001, the government detained more than 1,000 people, some as
material witnesses, some for suspected immigration violations, some
on suspicion of petty crimes. The Department of Justice initially
declined to reveal the number of detainees, their names, locations,
or length of detentions. When a coalition of 21 organizations
brought a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) claim in federal court,
the government continued to fight disclosure, revealing what we now
know (such as the number of detainees) only under judicial
pressure. After many months of litigation, Judge Gladys Kessler of
the federal district court in Washington, D.C., concluded that the
government's asserted need for secrecy, at least with respect to
some of the requests, was overblown.

The
government has also resisted scrutiny of the grounds for its
detention of individuals. When lawsuits were brought on behalf of
some of the approximately 700 Guantanamo detainees, the government
persuaded two federal courts (including the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals) that no American court has jurisdiction over those
claims and that a variety of plaintiffs lacked standing. The
government has also declared those detainees not to be prisoners of
war and thus has denied them Geneva Convention hearings to
determine whether their capture was a mistake. So except for the
occasional, circumscribed news story the government has allowed, we
do not yet know who is being detained or why. [...]

Wilson, the district
attorney for Watauga County, and members of his staff started
flipping through legal texts and precedents in the past few weeks
until they found what they were looking for - a law with more
teeth.

[...]The GAO report focused
on the use of cameras by two agencies, the National Park Service
and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia
(MPDC) and the United States Park Police. MPDC told GAO that their
cameras were geared to fight crime, particularly, but not solely,
during demonstrations and whenever the Homeland declares CODE
ORANGE.

MPDC
has 14 cameras of their own, but can access real-time video from
other DC agencies including the public schools as well as "certain
private entities." MPDC has a written set of regulations that
restrict camera operators from focusing in on faces or print, but
GAO also pointed out that there is no clear training regimen for
the camera operators to make sure these restrictions are followed.
MPDC has yet to develop any evidence that the camera systems
actually reduce crime.

The
United States Park Police also have cameras in and around the
nation's capital and they are far more secretive than MPDC about
how, when and where they are used. Park Police claim that their
cameras are chiefly to fight "terrorism" instead of "crime." The
Park Police will not divulge where any of their cameras are, and
has not yet issued final regulations on their use that were due a
year ago. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, however has
recently obtained the draft version of these regulations through a
Freedom of Information Act request. Those regulations call for the
spycams to tape everything they see "twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week" and leave open the door to use of face-recognition
software and the use of images from the cameras in civil as well as
criminal proceedings. [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to
roll back a key provision, which allows the government to conduct
secret "sneak and peek" searches of private property, of a sweeping
anti-terrorism law passed soon after the Sept. 11
attacks.

The
House voted 309-118 to attach the provision to a $37.9 billion bill
funding the departments of Commerce, State and Justice. It would be
the first change in the controversial USA Patriot Act since the law
was enacted in October, 2001.
The move would block the Justice Department from using any funds to
take advantage of the section of the act that allows it to secretly
search the homes of suspects and only inform them later that a
warrant had been issued to do so. [...]

U.S.
Attorney General John Ashcroft -- who has become a lightning rod
for concerns over the possible erosion of U.S. civil liberties --
defended the Patriot Act on Monday, saying criticism of it was
based on exaggerations and falsehoods.

Viacom and News Corporation could be forced to sell some of
their US television stations after the House of Representatives on
Wednesday approved a bill that would overturn controversial media
ownership regulations. [...]

captured footage of three
objects hovering above Francois Lake one night last
year.

By
JENNIFER LANG

TERRACE’S reputation
as B.C.’s UFO capital is creating a new kind of tourism boom
in the region.

Curious travellers from
across North America are inquiring about the tourism facilities in
communities across Highway 16, including Terrace, says a UFO
researcher based in Houston, B.C.

"You
would be surprised just how many emails I get over the months
requesting information for our areas," says Brian Vike, editor of
Canadian Communicator, a magazine specializing in the paranormal,
and director of
HBCC-UFO Research.

Earlier this year, Terrace
cracked the top 10 in a national UFO survey, earning third place,
just ahead of Houston, where Vike operates a toll-free UFO hotline
so he can collect and investigate eye-witness reports.

Terrace recorded the third
highest number of UFO sightings in the country last year, bringing
national and international attention to the region, Vike
says.

The
resulting publicity means the northwest is rapidly emerging as one
of the best places to see UFOs in Canada.
Savvy tourists know they’re more likely to see a flying
saucer than the elusive Kermode bear, the white form of a black
bear that is the city’s official symbol. [...]

Vike
says 2003 is shaping up to be another record year for UFO sightings
in the skies over Terrace, where 25 sightings were recorded last
year, suggesting more national and international attention could be
on its way.

NEW
YORK - An aspiring politician strolled past a metal detector at
tightly guarded City Hall — escorted by the councilman he
once hoped to replace — then pulled a gun in the crowded
balcony of the council chamber and shot his rival to
death.

Councilman James Davis, 41, a former police officer and
ordained minister who campaigned against urban violence, was struck
several times in the torso and died at a hospital. He had planned
to introduce legislation on workplace violence that afternoon.
[...]

Comment:
Just the thing to remind jittery New Yorkers that they need to fear
for their safety and increase security. See:
How Does a Gun Get In? With a Wave. Could very
well be another
Greenbaum case. There certainly seems to be violence
in the air . . .

NEILLSVILLE, Wis. (AP) - An explosive device detonated beneath
the driver of a car traveling on a highway Wednesday, injuring him
and his girlfriend, authorities said.

Military personnel called to the scene in central Wisconsin
found a second device in the car that did not explode, said Capt.
Mark Cattanach of the Clark County Sheriff's Department. It was not
immediately known where that device was located. [...]

Comment:It is interesting that after the explosion, it wasn't
local or state police that handled the matter, but rather
military personnel.

KINSHASA, Congo (Reuters)
-- French peacekeepers found the hacked bodies of 22 elderly
people, women and children in a village outside the Congolese town
of Bunia after trading gunfire with militiamen, a spokesman said on
Tuesday.

The
bodies provided the latest evidence of massacres taking place
beyond the protection of the French troops, who began deploying in
Bunia last month to shield residents from clashes between ethnic
Hema and Lendu militia.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A man who tried to protect
a group of ducklings from stone-throwing teenagers was nursing his
own injuries after the youths turned the attack on him, police said
on Tuesday.

XI'AN, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Police on Wednesday announced that they
have discovered the cause of Monday's blast in a food store in
downtown Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
According to the police, 43-year-old Wang Dayong was distraught
over his broken marriage and the division of property. At around
9:00 a.m. Monday, Wang, armed with explosives, went to his
ex-wife's food stall and entered into negotiations, which ended in
a violent argument.

In
desperation, Wang set off the explosives, killing himself, his
ex-wife and three court employees and injuring nine others
seriously.

(IsraelNN.com) At approximately 9:00pm tonight (Wednesday), a
Jew was attacked and stabbed by four Arabs in northern Jerusalem.
The young man, who was stabbed in the back, was transferred to
Hadassah Hospital’s Ein Karem branch. No further details are
available at this time. The police are searching for the
attackers.

BOSTON (AP) Over six
decades, likely more than 1,000 people were molested by Roman
Catholic priests and church workers while leaders in the Boston
archdiocese engaged in a ''massive, inexcusable failure'' to do
anything about it, the Massachusetts attorney general said in a
report Wednesday that outlines the results of a lengthy criminal
investigation. [...]

LOS
ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles Times refused to allow a Secret
Service agent to speak to an editorial cartoonist who drew a man
pointing a gun at President Bush, the newspaper reported
Tuesday.

The
agent went to the Times office Monday to speak with Michael
Ramirez, whose cartoon in Sunday's Opinion section showed a man
labeled "politics" pointing a gun at Bush in a background labeled
"Iraq." Ramirez said it was a takeoff on a famous Vietnam War
photograph of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong
officer. [...]

WYNNE -- An early morning thunderstorm left many without power
in Wynne [Arkansas] Tuesday. [...]

"We
had winds between 75-100 miles per hour that came through eastern
Arkansas this morning," Thompson told The Sun Tuesday. "As of 5
p.m. we had about 7,500 customers without power; 2,000 in Forrest
City; 1,100 in Hughes; 1,300 in Wynne; 1,700 in Marion; and, 1,800
in Earle." [...]

"We
had a lightning and wind storm move through here at about 6 a.m.,"
Horton told The Sun. "We have scattered outages all over due to
high winds. I think it was just sudden straight-line winds, to the
best of my knowledge. It's kind of unusual, especially for this
time of year." [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to delay
action on global warming in favor of more study, according to an
excerpt of a report circulated on Wednesday by U.S. environmental
groups. [...]

A
company called TransOrbital of La Jolla, Calif., is seriously
considering the idea of putting storage facilities on Earth's only
natural satellite, says a report in PC Magazine. [...]

The
moon is a pretty safe place to store your data," said Mr. Laurie.
"Sept. 11 caused people to think about what data backup really
means, and there is also always the threat of a natural disaster
here on earth, such as a small asteroid hitting the planet."
[...]

Carbon stored beneath the
Earth's crust could be released by volcanic eruptions
(NASA)

A
vast reservoir of carbon is stashed beneath the Earth's crust and
could be released by a major volcanic eruption, unleashing a mass
extinction of the kind that last occurred 200 million years ago,
German geologists report. [...]

HONG
KONG (Reuters) - One of the most powerful typhoons in years,
bringing howling winds and torrential rain, ripped into southern
China Thursday after killing at least 10 people in the Philippines
and injuring dozens more. [...]

BOISE, Idaho - Two firefighters were overrun by flames and
killed soon after they were dropped by helicopter to battle a
fast-moving blaze in a national forest in central Idaho, officials
said Wednesday.

The
fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest about 130 miles south of
Missoula, Mont., was caused by lightning and first reported Sunday
night. Hot temperatures and wind blew it up from 120 acres to about
1,000 acres Tuesday night, when the two died, officials said.
[...]

Wildfires this year have charred some 1.46 million acres
nationwide. That remains a quieter-than-average wildfire
season.

Other states with large fires included Arizona, California,
Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah,
Washington and Wyoming.

[...]Multinational companies are increasingly moving not only
production facilities but headquarters functions abroad, marking a
new stage in the globalisation of corporate activity, according to
the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Geneva-based Unctad says 829 headquarters operations were
established or relocated worldwide in the 15 months to March 2003,
nearly a quarter of them in developing countries.

The
UK was the most popular choice among industrialised nations with
181 HQs established in that time, followed by the US (126) and
Australia (54). [...]

(Delano, California) July 22, 2003 - The Virgin Mary of Guadeloupe
is a cherished sight for Catholics, and now hundreds of believers
are gathering in a California town to see what they're calling a
miracle.

They
say they can see an image of Mary on the chimney of a house.
It appears from about 8:45 at night until about 5:30 in
the morning.

Ahmedabad, July 23: Police and forensic officials are baffled
about the 'blood like' liquid that allegedly oozed out of the walls
and floors of a house in Maninagar area of the city on Wednesday
morning.

An
unidentified liquid, red in colour began oozing out of the bathroom
of a house inhabited by 14 persons and spread to other parts of the
two-storeyed building within half an hour starting at 8.45 am,
police said.

Every time he and his team would ask locals for the whereabouts of
centuries-old ruins, they'd get the same response. "Everyone kept
pointing us to the sea," Hiebert recalled.

Hiebert knows now why they
did. After some preliminary trips, the University of Pennsylvania
professor and other scientists will go on a first-ever effort to
excavate ancient ships and a possible human settlement left
mummified in the Black Sea's oxygen-free waters. [...]

NIH/National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases
July 22, 2003

A
single protein acts as a key switch point in frontline immune
system reactions to both bacterial and viral infections, according
to a report published online today in the journal Nature. In
determining how this protein functions, a team of scientists
supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID) can now explain why certain symptoms, such as
fever, occur regardless of the cause of infection. [...]

Chemists have created diamonds using compressed and heated
carbon dioxide.

The
scientists were working at the University of Science and
Technology, China.

They
are ideal for use in cutting tools and abrasives but the process is
being improved to make small gemstones. [...]

And Finally . .
.

Bush to Star in Mini-Series
'Un-Frozen Caveman President'

JK
News Wire

In
an unheard of publicity move for a Republican, re-election hopeful
George W. Bush has accepted the leading role in a new television
mini-series called, "Un-frozen Caveman President".

Surprisingly, Democrats are
also showing support for the president's decision.

The
movie is about a weak caveman abandoned by his tribe on a glacier.
Upon discovery by a Texas Oil Billionaire, the caveman is defrosted
and spends most of the movie looking for someone with low enough
self esteem to sleep with a hairy neanderthal.

The
TV movie, which execs claim has nothing to do with Bush's real
life, despite obvious similarities, will air on FOX right after
their new special, "Animals that would attack: If they had
teeth."